First steps into Acapulco

I'm quite careful and Acapulco is a big, foreign place and I'd no clue what to expect. Oceana was berthed near the old town of Acapulco it was quite easy to just walk left along the dual carriageway, and then turn inland as the road curved left to follow the bay. There we found a church and a leafy, shaded square, see it here alongside Calle Independencia, actually down and left from where that indicates.

The weather was hot, so we took a moment in the square. A guy approached us saying he was an official guide and wondered if we needed any help. We said no, but we just asked him where the market was. He confirmed where we were planning to walk.

If you do zoom in on Google maps (the link above), this photograph is the bandstand as you turn in off the road:

The church is a big deal, but I can't remember what it's called I'm afraid:

Acne Facials anyone?:

A local lady feeding the pigeons:

The square was filled with fabulous music. It was only after we'd sat there for a while absorbing the 'atmosphere' (perhaps Mexicans just party all day) that we realised it was coming from an aerobics class on the second floor of one of the buildings, and of course they needed all the windows open, here's a link to the You Tube video, for some reason I'm trying to embed it here and it's publishing some other video.

Flying westwards means early wakeup

Flying west makes it easy to wake up early. The first day we'd dedicated to recovering from the journey and starting to get familiar with the ship but here's sunrise the next day and it's probably good to think about walking into Acapulco, Mexico.

First evening dinner on Oceana

We opted to have a set time for evening dinner. You get to choose the size of the table you want to sit at. My parents tend to choose a six, but since we were together this time we chose an eight. However on the first night, it's just sit where you like, so we didn' t meet our other table guests this evening.

Acapulco, dockside

We hadn't actually walked around the ship to see what everyone else's view was so we wandered. It was a bit more noisy with traffic, our side was better :-)

Getting to know Oceana

Oceana is quite stunning. It's huge and it's beautiful, 2,016 passengers, 261m long, 32.25m wide, 11 passenger decks and 875 crew.

The accommodation deck corridors run the full length of the ship and are served by three lifts. Stand at one end and the corridors seem to reach infinity. Perhaps the first job is to explore the sun deck.

Acapulco bay view

The view of Acapulco bay from our balcony after so many hours stuck on a plane made us quite tearful even though we look out over the sea at home. We were moored here.

Our first cruise

I'd never considered going on a cruise. I always felt I wanted more from travelling, to get more embedded in the culture I was visiting. I wanted to spend a while in one place not just hop in and buy stuff from a tourist shop.

But my parents invited me on a two week cruise through the Panama Canal, how could I refuse. And .. I really enjoyed it.

So here's the story.

My partner and I live in Scarborough (UK), so we set off at about 11:30 and drove to my parents in Long Eaton (near Nottingham). From there, we'd previously booked an airport taxi to Birmingham for flight Thomson 243 to Acapulco. We arrived on ship at about 9:30 their time (we are 6 hours ahead, so that's about 15:30 ours). Door to door, it was a 28 hour journey, but it wasn't painful. It was disappointing not to be able to wander off the plane while refuelling at Miami, but we'd only have been in the airport while everything was closed.

This pic is us arriving in the cabin, A546, midships.